An additional interesting observation:
The company is fond of telling us that the NMP22 test is getting alot of press and is being heavily quoted in the clinical literature. What they may not be telling you is that there are some recent papers that are not very favorable as concerns the usefullness of the test as a marker for bladder cancer. Specifically, if you log on to PUBMED and search bladder cancer tumor markers you will see at least one very recent paper (June, 1998) that is very damning as to the usefulness of the test when compared to BTA and urinary cytology.
I bring this up not to bash the company, but to warn all of you that if you want to know what's going on, you have to keep current with the literature. Whether these studies have been well done and will hold up to peer rview and scrutiny remains to be seen. If the company was smart, however, they would respond to these observations on their web site.
I am very impressed (in a negative way) that there have been no further insider buy transactions reported since Steve Chubb's purchase was reported on July 7. It seems more and more, as the clock continues to tick, that Mr. Chubb's transaction was more for show than anything else.
Some additional questions the company should answer:
What's up with Kaiser Permanente. Are they still hot on the test. If so, have they expanded the use of the test to their other sites? Are they reordering?
Why did Robertson Stephens sell all their holdings?
If the colon cancer test is resubmitted, how much longer will a decision take on the part of the FDA ( I would suspect quite a while).
If the cervical cancer test is so great, why aren't they lining up to license the test? Why is it taking so long to find ANYONE who seems to be interested.
If the breast cancer data is the best preclinical data that the company has seen as concerns any of its products, to date, why haven't they published the data?
If the prostate data is so great why can't they find a partner for this product? Talk about a hot topic- prostate cancer, the mens equivalent of breast cancer.
I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not management per se, but the platform. Say it isn't so, Steve. The clock continues to tick.
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